I don't know what, if anything, it means that Janet Yellen is recorded as having voted (as an FOMC member) for the hike in the funds target today, while the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank of which she's president was alone in failing to request a hike in the discount rate.

After having her home on the market for nearly a year — with about 30 showings, multiple price drops, and only one not-so-tempting offer — Phyllis Troia decided to try something different. Very different.

She and her husband put her Dutch colonial in Plymouth up for auction, to be sold to the highest bidder.

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After the weekend, there were nine bidders — a very promising development. But in the end, she was not satisfied with the final two bids, and exercised her right to close the bidding. She's now moved on to a for-sale-by-owner model.

Of course, a seller could also try the same tricks and hold out for an excessive price in a hot market. But I suspect it's more common when the market-clearing price is falling than when it's rising.

The Russian oligarch Aleksei Mordashov lost the battle for Arcelor for one reason, Russian politicians say: Russophobia, a bias against Russian businesses and businessmen.

The billionaire and his steel company, Severstal, were bumped aside last weekend as Arcelor's board accepted a takeover offer of €26.5 billion, or $33 billion, from Mittal Steel, saying it was a better fit. Mordashov's offer to take a big stake in Arcelor went by the wayside.

Mordashov may be right. Note that the story refers to him as an "oligarch". Draw your own connection, or keep reading:

Western investors readily admit that the markets may not be completely comfortable with a wave of Russian takeovers.

"There is still this image that Russia is not a nice cuddly teddy bear, it is an aggressive bear" than can turn against investors, said Stephen Pope, head of equity research at Cantor Fitzgerald in London. Some investors still think that anything to do with Russia is "a little bit doubtful and dubious," he said.

When asked why they do not trust Russian businesses, European investors often mention Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder of the Yukos oil company, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence in a Siberian penal colony, and the Russian company Gazprom's shutoff of gas supplies to Ukraine last year in a price dispute. Both examples show that the government has a strong hand in business matters, they say.

"One is not always clear whether these are genuine companies or fronts for the state," said Geoffrey Wood, a professor of economics at Cass Business School in London.

Also, if it's a genuine company, how long will it be before the state decides to confiscate it? It seems safer to invest in a country whose government respects rule of law.

Incidentally, there seems to be a developing consensus now around another hike at the end of the month. The one point I want to make is not to bet more money than you'd be willing to lose on it until after the inflation reports next Tuesday and Wednesday. If [the core rate] come[s] in at 0.3%, though, the doves will be facing a real headwind.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the CPI-U advanced 0.4 percent in May, following a 0.6 percent rise in April. Energy costs continued their advance--up 2.4 percent in May. Within energy, the index for petroleum based energy increased 4.8 percent, while the index for energy services fell 0.6 percent. The food index increased 0.1 percent in May. The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.3 percent in May, the same as in each of the preceding two months; the index for shelter again accounted for over half of the monthly advance.

Incidentally, there seems to be a developing consensus now around another hike at the end of the month. The one point I want to make is not to bet more money than you'd be willing to lose on it until after the inflation reports next Tuesday and Wednesday. If those come in at 0.3%, though, the doves will be facing a real headwind.

Update: I want to clarify that I meant the core rate when I said 0.3%. Market expectations are for the headline numbers to come in at 0.4% or so, but the core numbers to come in at 0.2%. If they do, the fed is still likely to raise rates, but it seems to me the wiggle room still exists. At 0.3%, the markets would really need an explanation if the fed stood pat.

Ah, accrued interest, you wife-beating drunk. The very idea makes me want to slap whoever came up with it; the 30/360 convention makes my head hurt. But the idea that "actual/actual" has two different meanings, when the name looks like it must be the most straightforward convention — that makes me wonder whether it mightn't be worth living in a cave hunting large prey with a big stick.

Incidentally, in thinking about oil prices, particularly in terms of U.S. government public policy towards them, I tend to think in terms of domestic demand and another quantity that is equal to the world-wide supply minus foreign demand. If I need to give this thing a name, I call it "effective supply". Anyone have a better term for it?

Because I live in Boston, when people hear that my dog is named Tobin, the most common first reaction is, "Oh, like the bridge?"

When I had a dog named Keynes, the reaction was, "Oh, like the mayonnaise?"

As I commented over there, I've never heard of Cain's mayo.

On the other hand, when I learned of Tobin in my finance class, my first reaction was, "oh, like the bridge." I started referring to the line on the risk-return graph connecting the risk-free rate and the efficient frontier of the set of risky portfolios as the Tobin Bridge. Which didn't seem to amuse anyone but me.

And, wouldn't you know it, the next day this comes out. It is Not Inflationary. Aggregate wages per week actually dropped by 0.2%, according to the establishment survey; benefits probably did a bit better, but the income to labor seems to have abruptly come back down to earth. July interest rate futures moved 6.5 basis points quite quickly.